1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to board games of the type where players place tiles on a game board. More particularly, the present invention relates to board games where players use tiles on the game board to form words or phrases.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Games that use tiles as playing pieces, such as mahjong have been played for centuries. In the United States, there are many types and styles of tile games. One of the most popular of such tile games is Scrabble®, which was invented by Alfred Butts in 1931. In the game of Scrabble®, players are given tiles containing different letters. The players then collect letters and spell words to gather points. Over the years, there have been many variations of the general Scrabble® game, resulting in other tile games with different methods of play. Such prior art games are exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,118 to Barrett, entitled Crossword Game Board Apparatus and U.S. Pat. No. 5,697,615 to Gilbert, entitled Word Linking Game.
In such prior art games, the objective of the game is for players to form words from tiles. The formed words are laid out on a board so that other players can form words using letters exposed on the board. The formed words, therefore, overlap, in a crossword-like manner. However, the words are arbitrary and the different words being formed have no grammatical connection to the other words on the board. Furthermore, in word spelling games, educated players have a distinct advantage over less educated players. Educated players typically have larger vocabularies and are better spellers than non-educated players. As such, for the game to be fun for all players, all players should be intellectually matched. This seldom happens in real life.
Players of different educational levels would be much more evenly matched in a game if the object were to form sentences from words, rather than form words from letters. If a game requires that player form sentences from common pre-existing words, the depth of a person's vocabulary and their ability to spell becomes irrelevant. Rather, it is their imagination and creativity in forming sentences from disjointed words that matters. Thus, a child and an adult of vastly different levels of education can be fairly matched.
In the prior art, there do exist a few games where the object of the game is to links words to form sentences. Such prior art games provide cards with multiple words that must be combined to form sentences. Such prior art games are exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,671,516 to Lizzola, entitled Sentence Game and U.S. Pat. No. 5,547,199 to Calhoun, entitled Method Of Playing A Sentence Forming Game. However, most inventions directed toward sentence making are teaching aids that are intended to teach proper grammar skills. Such, teaching aids are exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 341,754 to Kenyon, entitled Educational Block, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,333,351 to Williams, entitled Teaching Device.
Teachings aids have little play value and such devices cannot be used to play a game with multiple people.
The present invention is a new game and a method of play that requires players to form sentences from word tiles. However, the game is designed so that multiple players of different educational levels can play the game simultaneously. Furthermore, the game combines question answering along with sentence formation during play. This greatly increases the play value of the game and makes the game more fun and less of an academic endeavor than other sentence forming games. The requirements of the new game are described and claimed below.